Friday, December 31, 2004

The Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame operated from 1978-2004. It was a non-profit organization based in North San Diego County in California. Here’s the full list of inductees and their years of induction.

A

Cannonball Adderley (1985)

Toshiko Akiyoshi (2001)

Red Allen (1995), jazz trumpeter

Lil Hardin Armstrong (1986)

Louis Armstrong (1978)

B

Mildred Bailey (1989)

Chet Baker (1987)

Charlie Barnet (1984)

Count Basie (1981)

Sidney Bechet (1983)

Bix Beiderbecke (1979)

Louie Bellson (1993)

Tex Beneke (1996)

Tony Bennett (1997)

Bunny Berigan (1985)

Irving Berlin (2004)

Chuck Berry (1984)

Eubie Blake (1983)

Art Blakey (1982)

Jimmy Blanton (1994)

Buddy Bolden (1988)

Will Bradley (1998)

Bob Brookmeyer (2003)

Clifford Brown (1985)

Lawrence Brown (2001)

Les Brown (1999)

Ray Brown (1997)

Dave Brubeck (1986)

Kenny Burrell (1990)

C

Cab Calloway (1987)

Frankie Carle (1989)

Harry Carney (2000)

Benny Carter (1988)

Betty Carter (1994)

Ron Carter (2000)

Sid Catlett (1996)

Paul Chambers (1994)

Ray Charles (2004)

Doc Cheatham (1996)

Don Cherry (1995)

Charlie Christian (1981)

Kenny Clarke (1986)

Buck Clayton (1990)

Al Cohn (1996)

Nat King Cole (1993)

Ornette Coleman (1989)

John Coltrane (1980)

Perry Como (2004)

Eddie Condon (1983)

Bing Crosby (2002)

D

Tadd Dameron (2001)

Helen Oakley Dance (2004)

Stanley Dance (1999)

Miles Davis (1979)

Wild Bill Davison (1997)

Buddy DeFranco (2002)

Paul Desmond (1991)

Baby Dodds (1991)

Johnny Dodds (1988)

Eric Dolphy (1984)

Dorothy Donegan (1998)

Jimmy Dorsey (1983)

Tommy Dorsey (1981)

E

Bob Eberly (2003)

Billy Eckstine (1985)

Sweets Edison (1994)

Roy Eldridge (1985)

Duke Ellington (1978)

Bill Evans (1982)

Gil Evans (1986)

F

Tal Farlow (1996)

Art Farmer (2001)

Ella Fitzgerald (1978)

Tommy Flanagan (1999)

Helen Forrest (2001)

Pops Foster (1992)

Pete Fountain (1997)

Bud Freeman (1992)

G

Erroll Garner (1993)

Stan Getz (1983)

Terry Gibbs (2001)

Dizzy Gillespie (1982)

Paul Gonsalves (2004)

Benny Goodman (1978)

Dexter Gordon (1988)

Norman Granz (2003)

Stéphane Grappelli (1995)

Glen Gray/Casa Loma Orchestra (2002)

Freddie Green (2000)

H-I

Bobby Hackett (1997)

Jim Hall (2003)

Lionel Hampton (1986)

Herbie Hancock (1995)

W. C. Handy (1981)

Barry Harris (1999)

Johnny Hartman (1986)

Coleman Hawkins (1982)

Fletcher Henderson (1979)

Woody Herman (1981)

J. C. Higginbotham (2003)

Earl Hines (1980)

Milton Hinton (1996)

Art Hodes (1998)

Johnny Hodges (1990)

Billie Holiday (1979)

Claude Hopkins (1998)

Shirley Horn (2000)

Lena Horne (1991)

Freddie Hubbard (1994)

Alberta Hunter (1996)

J

Chubby Jackson (2000)

Milt Jackson (1989)

Illinois Jacquet (1985)

Harry James (1983)

Budd Johnson (1993)

Bunk Johnson (1986)

J. J. Johnson (1988)

James P. Johnson (1980)

Hank Jones (2000)

Isham Jones (1989)

Jo Jones (1990)

Jonah Jones (1999)

Quincy Jones (1988)

Thad Jones (1995)

Scott Joplin (1987)

Louis Jordan (1998)

K

Sammy Kaye (1992)

Wynton Kelly (1994)

Hal Kemp (1992)

Stan Kenton (1982)

Freddie Keppard (1997)

Barney Kessel (1999)

B. B. King (2003)

John Kirby (1993)

Andy Kirk (1991)

Gene Krupa (1983)

L

Scott LaFaro (2003)

Eddie Lang (1986)

Yank Lawson (1998)

Peggy Lee (1992)

John Lewis (2001)

Meade Lux Lewis (1993)

Guy Lombardo (1992)

Mundell Lowe (2004)

Jimmie Lunceford (1987)

M

Shelly Manne (2002)

Wynton Marsalis (1996)

Billy May (1988)

Howard McGhee (2003)

William McKinney (2004)

Jimmy McPartland (1992)

Marian McPartland (1999)

Carmen McRae (1984)

Jay McShann (1985)

Eddie Miller (1998)

Glenn Miller (1978)

Lucky Millinder (1996)

Charles Mingus (1982)

Thelonious Monk (1980)

Wes Montgomery (1983)

James Moody (1993)

Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton (1982)

Bennie Moten (1987)

Gerry Mulligan (1984)

N

Ray Nance (2003)

Fats Navarro (1984)

Sammy Nestico (2004)

Red Nichols (1986)

Ray Noble (1987)

Jimmie Noone (1987)

Red Norvo (1991)

O

King Oliver (1984)

Sy Oliver (2000)

Kid Ory (1986)

P-Q

Charlie Parker (1979)

Joe Pass (1995)

Les Paul (1990)

Art Pepper (2002)

Oscar Peterson (1995)

Oscar Pettiford (1992)

Ben Pollack (1992)

Bud Powell (1991)

Mel Powell (1997)

Specs Powell (2004)

Louis Prima (1993)

Tito Puente (1995)

R

Sun Ra (1987)

Ma Rainey (1983)

Don Redman (1990)

Django Reinhardt (1984)

Buddy Rich (1981)

Max Roach (1991)

Shorty Rogers (1989)

Adrian Rollini (1998)

Sonny Rollins (1999)

Jimmy Rowles (2001)

Jimmy Rushing (1988)

Pee Wee Russell (1987)

S

Eddie Sauter (2003)

Raymond Scott (1994)

Charlie Shavers (1997)

Artie Shaw (1990)

Wayne Shorter (1998)

Horace Silver (1991)

George Simon (2002)

Nina Simone (2002)

Zoot Sims (1992)

Frank Sinatra (1980)

Bessie Smith (1981)

Stuff Smith (1994)

Willie Smith (1987)

Muggsy Spanier (1997)

Jess Stacy (1996)

Jo Stafford (2003)

Rex Stewart (1994)

Sonny Stitt (1989)

Billy Strayhorn (1981)

Maxine Sullivan (1998)

Ralph Sutton (2002)

T-U

Paul Tanner (2004)

Buddy Tate (1988)

Art Tatum (1985)

Billy Taylor (1999)

Jack Teagarden (1985)

Clark Terry (1994)

Claude Thornhill (1984)

Martha Tilton (2004)

Mel Tormé (1990)

Dave Tough (2000)

Lennie Tristano (2001)

McCoy Tyner (2000)

V

Sarah Vaughan (1982)

Joe Venuti (2000)

W-X

T-Bone Walker (2002)

Fats Waller (1989)

Dinah Washington (1987)

Chick Webb (1984)

Ben Webster (1983)

Ted Weems (2003)

Lawrence Welk (1989)

Paul Whiteman (1993)

Clarence Williams (1991)

Cootie Williams (1993)

Joe Williams (1995)

Mary Lou Williams (1985)

Tony Williams (1997)

Gerald Wilson (2001)

Nancy Wilson (1999)

Teddy Wilson (1993)

Y-Z

Lester Young (1980), jazz tenor saxophonist

Trummy Young (2004)

Resources:

NNDB (Partial list. Includes birth, death, year of induction, what musician is known for, and links to brief bio pages.)

Tuesday, September 21, 2004

To follow up “the Kinks-inspired popcraft of their underrated 2000 effort, Warning,” STE “Green Day tears up the blueprint and comes up with something unexpected: a punk rock concept album built around elaborate melodies, odd tempo changes, and a collection of songs that freely reference classic rock warhorses like the Beatles and Pink Floyd.” AV “It’s a bit tempting to peg Green Day’s sprawling, ambitious, brilliant seventh album, American Idiot, as their version of a Who album…but things aren’t quite that simple. American Idiot is an unapologetic, unabashed rock opera, a form that Pete Townshend pioneered with Tommy, but Green Day doesn’t use that for a blueprint as much as they use the Who's mini-opera ‘A Quick One, While He's Away,’ whose whirlwind succession of 90-second songs isn’t only emulated on two song suites here, but provides the template for the larger 13-song cycle.” STE

“But the Who are only one of many inspirations on this audacious, immensely entertaining album,” STE “but reducing the album to its influences gives the inaccurate impression that this is no more than a patchwork quilt of familiar sounds, when it’s an idiosyncratic, visionary work in its own right. First of all, part of Green Day’s appeal is how they have personalized the sounds of the past, making time-honored guitar rock traditions seem fresh, even vital. With their first albums, they styled themselves after first-generation punk they were too young to hear firsthand, and as their career progressed, the group not only synthesized these influences into something distinctive, but chief songwriter Billie Joe Armstrong turned into a muscular, versatile songwriter in his own right.” STE His “incisive, cutting lyrics…effectively convey the paranoia and fear of living in American in days after 9/11, but also veer into moving, intimate small-scale character sketches.” STE

“Like all great concept albums, American Idiot works on several different levels. It can be taken as a collection of great songs – songs that are as visceral or as poignant as Green Day at their best, songs that resonate outside of the larger canvas of the story, as the fiery anti-Dubya title anthem proves – but these songs have a different, more lasting impact when taken as a whole. While its breakneck, freewheeling musicality has many inspirations, there really aren’t many records like American Idiot…In its musical muscle and sweeping, politically charged narrative, it’s something of a masterpiece, and one of the few – if not the only – records of 2004 to convey what it feels like to live in the strange, bewildering America of the early 2000s.” STE

Saturday, June 26, 2004

The Killers “crawled out of Vegas armed with glitzy beats and faux Bowie accents.” RS’09 “Merging Duran Duran makeup, New Order hi-hats, and Bruce Springsteen-ian grandiosity, they gave rock fans a non-geriatric arena-ready alternative to the world’s Nickelbacks this decade.” PF

The group might have just been another of the pack of the new millennium’s wave of new dance-rock, but “‘Mr. Brightside’ made them famous.” RS’09 “Preening and posturing and fusing high drama, power pop, and rock gravitas into one perfectly transcendent song.” LR “In a stroke of genius they never quite equaled, these Las Vegas rockers married the infectious grooves of the then-trendy dance-rock scene to a surging melody straight out of the U2/ Coldplay handbook.” MX They brought along “a story line that sums up the first two seasons of Gossip Girl.” RS’09

Mr. Brightside

The Killers’ lead singer Brandon Flowers had a girlfriend who cheated on him and the band’s guitarist, Dave Keuning, extracted revenge with this song about her. Flowers told Q magazine about discovering her unfaithfulness. “I was asleep and I knew something was wrong. I have these instincts. I went to the Crown and Anchor [a Vegas pub] and my girlfriend was there with another guy.” PF

However, Flowers’ anguish proved to have a “bright side.” The song didn’t just give The Killers their biggest hit, but one thoroughly embraced by fans. UK radio station XFM wrapped the decade with a listener poll to determine the top 1000 songs of all time and “Mr. Brightside” topped the list. While such a lofty position showed the weaknesses of turning an “all time” poll over to voters, it still showed just how much fans cherished the song.

Review:
“Yeah!” secured Usher as the artist of 2004. Its 12 weeks atop the pop charts, followed by three more chart-toppers that year, gave him a record-breaking 28 weeks at the pinnacle. TB He became the first solo act, and only third recording act overall (after the Beatles and Bee Gees) with three simultaneous top ten hits. SF As the lead single from Confessions, “Yeah!” propelled that album to first week sales of 1.1 million, doubling R. Kelly’s previous record for a male R&B artist in the Nielsen SoundScan era. BB100

“The synthy hook of Usher’s biggest, danciest hit” LR about a guy seduced at a club while his girlfriend is out of town looked like it might establish him as the Michael Jackson of the 21st century, but “he has yet to come up with another single as transcendent as this jam.” PD Kudos go to Ludacris, with the “greatest guest verse ever.” DS “His quotable moments are off the charts. Consider: ‘I won’t stop ‘til I get ‘em in they birthday suits,’ ‘take that and rewind it back,’ and the immortal ‘we want a lady in the street but a freak in the bed.’” AL

Then there’s the crunk sound contributed by producer/vocal contributor Lil’ Jon. His “parody-worthy exhortations that are as infuriating as they are catchy” LR make him “a one-note guy, but for the space of a single song, that one note is the greatest party ever.” DS

However, “Yeah!” nearly didn’t make it on the Confessions album. Usher had submitted the album to his label and they thought it needed, as Lil’ Jon said, “that first powerful monster.” WK The song’s similarity to Petey Pablo’s “Freek-a-Leek” then became problematic. Usher told MTV News that after he and Lil’ Jon had finished “Yeah!” they discovered it had the same beat as “Freek.” SF Another account, however, suggests that before Confessions, Lil’ Jon had been commissioned by Jive Records to produce some beats for rapper Mystikal. One of those was passed on to Pablo and became “Freek.” Lil’ Jon then later reworked the track into “Yeah!” WK

Review:
The grunge that ruled the ‘90s gave way to the “retro garage-punk [that] emerged as the predominant strain of post-millennial rock music in 2001.” PF American bands like The Strokes and The White Stripes were leading the way, leaving “Britain’s indie aristocracy looking bloated, boring, and irreversibly out-dated.” SY However, this was more serious-minded music, making one thing clear: “rockers forgot how to dance.” PD

“Aspiring buzz bands realized that, down on the disco floor, they could really make their profits” PF and “with one song the Empire struck back.” SY Franz Ferdinand “brought the groove back to indie rock.” PD “‘Take Me Out’ crams every known Britpop trick into its fevered four minutes.” SY These Scottish rockers “took a certain strain of cooler-than-thou, spiky post-punk,” MX gave it a dose of “Beatlesque fluency,” SY “and gave us permission to dance to it.” MX It is “effortlessly arty and deliciously fun, at the same time.” NME’09

The song “a crowdpleaser that doesn’t sound out of place blasting during half-time at an NBA game.” PE but is still “a smash hit that was still cool for the indie kids to love.” PE It may be “the most surefire winner any DJ can have in his repertoire.” NME’09 “After a tense build-up…‘Take Me Out’ sounds ready to blast off; instead, Franz pull an aesthetic 180 and slow it down into a militaristic, libidinous funk stomp.” PF “This mod guitar stomp rules any bar where the girls feel like dancing,” RS’09 but is “still heavy enough to lure in those girls’ jock boyfriends.” PF It “remains one of the most satisfying moments in guitar-pop this decade has produced.” DS

Lead singer “Alex Kapranos’ arch delivery and the song’s ambiguous meaning (was it about being taken out like a date, or about being taken out, like…killed?)” PD gave the song an added curiosity factor. In addition, “the innovative accompanying video won MTV’s Breakthrough Video of the Year and the Q Awards’ Video of the Year.” AB’00